It seems the developers didn't really intend for media-session.conf to be edited. Instead it's the existence of the files 'with-jack', 'with-pulseaudio' or 'with-alsa' that trigger the 'with-audio' settings.
So I now think the cleanest solution is for us to just not install these files:
with-jack
with-pulseaudio
Then the bug is fixed. Anyone who wishes to re-enable audio support need only create an empty file called 'with-pulseaudio', 'with-jack' or 'with-alsa'.
P.S. I half expect long term the fix might be to move 'default-profile' (and others) into 'with-alsa'. 'with-alsa' is disabled by default but appears to be the intended method of enabling native audio support between pipewire-media-session and the kernel.
It seems the developers didn't really intend for media-session.conf to be edited. Instead it's the existence of the files 'with-jack', 'with-pulseaudio' or 'with-alsa' that trigger the 'with-audio' settings.
So I now think the cleanest solution is for us to just not install these files:
with-jack
with-pulseaudio
Then the bug is fixed. Anyone who wishes to re-enable audio support need only create an empty file called 'with-pulseaudio', 'with-jack' or 'with-alsa'.
P.S. I half expect long term the fix might be to move 'default-profile' (and others) into 'with-alsa'. 'with-alsa' is disabled by default but appears to be the intended method of enabling native audio support between pipewire- media-session and the kernel.